I've seen some discussions about Movable Life on the different listservs I subscribe to. Reactions seem to be varied, from saying it has no use to saying it can be useful to monitor activity/students in second life and pop in when there is activity that needs attention. Has anyone started to use this application in their classes?
Here is the URL for Movable Life, in case you are curious:
The concept seems to have promise. If it is useful, perhaps this would be a good topic to submit for the Call For Papers.
Movable Life
As I understand it, this is a browser option for accessing Second Life. First blush--great idea: the SL download is huge and a CPU/bandwidth hog (3 of the 7 folks who work with me at the UT System TeleCampus can't run SL without crashing their machines--which are less than 2 years old but don't have a lot of video RAM).
I haven't tried ML but the reviews say it's limited to chatting--map style navigation, no proximity (you can't see nearby avatars), and no activity (can't right-click on objects). There's a competitor called AjaxLife.
Still, since I always liked VRML because it was browser-based, I like the concept. I sort of hate the idea of Linden owning SL. And I always thought the game folks at Valve have the architecture right: give away the server code and allow anyone to run a "world" in order to decentralize the network and promote modification.
Moveable Life
As already mentioned, Moveable Life allows you to chat with others on Second Life even the computer you using isn't up to handling all the Second Life graphics, etc. - or if you are using a computer where you don't have the permissions to download SL's software. It works(!), but it's not like being there. ;)
Ilene Frank, ilene.frank [at] gmail [dot] com
Ilene Pratt on Second Life
Tampa Library
University of South Florida
Tampa FL
browsers+
The first virtual worlds conference had a few hundred folk. The recent, San Jose conference had over 1000. I am sensing that there will be several thousand at the spring VW conference.
The doubling rate of VW's is accelerating as are the plug-in's, front ends and consultants
here is an alpha front end which lets you use the browser to go to a variety of VW's
http://tinyurl.com/2hjlmw
All this to say that, as with the iPhone, don't rush out to get version 1.0 and then lament that it doesn't work perfectly or is missing desireable features.
On the other hand, don't get "new car itis" and "gotta be at the bleeding edge" in a rapidly changing technology unless you can afford it.
tom
tom
tom abeles
http://www.p2gray.com/
gives us time
Good point, Tom. Until we got new PC's last month, none of our "old" (2 years) machines could handle the graphic demands. That's actually good I think--gives us time to figure how to actually use VW for formal learning.